PlOT oVERVIEW

The story of King Lear starts with him trying to divide his land. He holds a contest which is meant to reveal to him from which of the three sisters is the most deserving of his land, and even though this is a contest filled with flattery, it is held. The contest starts and we have a fold in the plot because we have the two sisters explaining fantasy love, but when we see the third sister Cordeila she does not say anything but that her love cannot be fully said. King Lear is angered so he banishes her and sends her away with the duke of France with no land or title to her name. The rest of the play is built upon this, for we see how the two sisters will betray their father by trying to strip him away from all land and driving him to the brink of insanity. There is also the other part of the play where we have Edmund, an evil "bastard", trying to disprove the social hereditary view of beliefs in his society, so he lies to his father to make the "true son" banished but still remaining in the story. The play is then tied together with the interaction of these two stories into one. In the end, Lear, Cordeila, and the two sisters die and the play is ended with the music of a funeral marsh.